Early Settlement of Gundagai and Tumut No. 1. The
Land of the Golden Fleece.

29 January 1924 The Gundagai Times and Tumut,
Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser

By George
Clout.

A land of gold and corn and wine and oil,

Of herds and golden fleece and virgin soil.

The writer, who first designated Australia
as the land of the Golden Fleece, must have had in his mind's eye
her enormous mineral wealth, her great agricultural resources, and her
commercial potentialities, as well as her immense pastoral possibilities,
and that, not merely of the past, but of her much grander future, and
thus fastened upon a page of her history a name that would for all
time be the pride and glory of every true patriot.

One hundred and thirty years ago
Australia was 'terra incognita'
an unknown land.

Up till then the foot of the white man
had scarcely touched her shores.

For ages past it had been the
undisturbed abode of the aboriginal, "whose right there was none to
dispute."

What marvellous changes have been
witnessed since, changes that must awaken pride and gratification in the
heart of every interested Britisher.

The first discovery of this Great
Southern Land is shrouded in mystery.

It is impossible among the myriad
of claimants for its discovery to decide who should be credited
with the honour of priority.

Such ancient writers as Strabo,
Pliny and Plolerny wrote of a land of beauty
and bounty stretching far to the south of India and beyond the
equator to an un- known distance, and we may safely conclude that
they did not write of what they imagined, might be, but rather that
they told the story of early explorations in the vast and then
unknown expanse of the Southern seas, and thus left a record which
has passed down the ages from sire to son, and kept alive the treasures
of the past for the benefit of their successors in the distant years to
come.

Notwithstanding its many discoveries
the first step towards the occupancy of the Great Australian Land by a
civilized people was made in April, 1770.

It was then that Captain James
Cook on his voyage from Tahiti (where a scientific party were engaged in
observing the 'Transit of Venus') to Tasmania, being driven by contrary winds
to the North, they sighted land, which they named
Port Hicks after the name of the lieutenant, who first sighted it.

This point is situated in Gippsland,
Victoria.

Nine days afterwards his vessel entered
Botany Bay.

From thence be sailed Northwards,
naming bays, rivers, and promontories, with names that they still
bear, and at every point hoisting the British flag (sic), and taking possession in the name of King George
the Third, and baptised it New South Wales.

The next, step taken in the March of
progress was when Governor Phillip landed in Botany Bay with what
is called the First Fleet in 1788, or eighteen years after its discovery
by Captain Cook.

The fleet of Governor Phillip
consisted of 13 vessels, conveying upwards of one thousand souls.

His mission was primarily to
establish a convict settlement, but he soon made the discovery that Botany
Bay was not suitable for the purpose in view.

He therefore further explored the coast
with the object of finding a better one, with the result that the magnificent
harbor of Port Jackson was discovered, to which he once removed the
settlement, and notwithstanding the many adverse conditions that prevailed
during the first twenty years of its history, very substantial
progress was made in all directions, so much so that at the end of
that period it was found that an outlet for their ever increasing flocks
and herds was imperatively necessary.

At this time the return of stock
is given as 60,000sheep, 21,000 cattle and 2000 horses. An increase
little short of marvellous for the time.

As the colony was at this time
suffering from a severe drought, the matter of finding pasture for them
was a very serious problem, seeing that they were then hemmed in by
what was thought to be an impassable barrier, viz. the Blue
Mountains.

It was at this juncture of the
colony's history that the famous expedition of Went- worth,
Blaxland, and Lawson was undertaken, their object being to penetrate
the mountain range.

In this, they, alter much toil
and privation, were successful, and as a result of the labors the whole of the splendid lands of the
Western district were opened up for settlement, and thus almost
unlimited pasture was provided for the stock of the colonists on
lands which up till then were absolutely unknown.

The success of this expedition gave
a direct impetus to exploration in a more southerly direction, and it
was at this juncture that the man chiefly identified with the first explorations
in the Tumut and Murumbidgee districts came into
prominence, viz. Hamilton Hume.

Hume was born at Parramatta, so
he is a native of the soil.

His first exploits (and be it
remembered he was little more than a boy at the time) were at
Berrima, Sutton Forest, and then Goulburn Plains, all of which were
brought to view through his enterprise.

He further discovered; the
Shoalhaven River, Lake George and Yass Plains, and it was his
energy in this direction that induced the then Governor to enlist his
services as a leader of an expedition across the continent to Western
Port, an inlet which had been discovered and charted by Bass in
1797.

The ostensible object of the
expedition was to ascertain if there were any rivers of note emptying themselves into the ocean on the eastern coast south
of Sydney, and it appears somewhat singular that although the
explorers discovered and crossed a number of rivers on their famous
journey, they all flowed in the opposite direction.